Hybrid specs for hybrid classes - Page 10

Brekk · 01/31/07, 3:47 PM

Originally Posted by Mearis

Shadowpriest CC is limited to very few instances, so tipically they can DPS full time.

Completely disagree.

Shackle, AE Fear, and above all else Mind Control allow a non main healer priest many options. Mind control is EXTREMELY powerful as a CC spell, as not only can it not be removed by a party member AE'ing but depending on the mob MC'ed you get access to some pretty nifty stuff.

When my core group and I started farming Pandemonius for spirit shards. (15 min boss kill, reset, repeat) We figured out in the first few groups one of the mobs (i forget which offhand) has battle shout for 293ap. We first found this out when we had a group with no warrior. (are normal group is prot pally tank, holy pally heal, priest shadow (me) a mage for cc, and 1 open spot for random dps guildy) We eventually found out it stacks with the normal warrior battleshout.

Beyond the ability to drop out of shadowform to heal reasonably well. +477 dmg = +477 healing in my damage gear. Mind Control adds a whole new level of what abilities a shadowpriest has up their sleeve. Nothing is more awesome then MC'ing the healer on a 5 pull, and using a 2500hp grp heal, power word: shield, and a 600 per tick renew to keep your grp alive.

Edit: And just to add. There is an amazing amount of syngery between a holy paladin, and a shadow priest. The one general weakness of healidans, is they can focus heal, but have difficulty with healing the entire grp. Vamp Embrace completely nullifies this as long as the tank is doing their job and not letting anyone else get hit.

Mordinm · 01/31/07, 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by Etheric

The new 5 mans as a feral druid have been amounst the most fun I have had in Wow.

Dps in cat form, tank in bear form or heal depending on the situation is great. Putting down some good dps (mangle is great), then shifting to caster to innovate the priest who was almost out of mana and topping up the MT with a bit of healing, then goign to bear to tank the adds is a nice thing to be able to do. I am hoping it will survive in the 10 mans at least, and would hope that osmething like that has some value in the 25 man, but that is more doubtful.

Blizzard said they tried, maybe it will get better in time.

Yeah I have found the utility parts of being a Druid very usefull in the kind of encounters it seems blizzard loves to put in the level 70 5 mans. I have been mostly main tanking these instances and for most of the boss fights I have encountered there is time and space to pop out of bear and toss the healer an innervate and a few of them afford enough time to get in a tick to two of tranquility (Buffed to the point of awesomness with 0 plus healing). I think 3 out of 4 bosses in shadow labs, Kargath in Shattered halls, 3 out of 5 bosses in botanica and the last boss in steam vaults all allow time for me to toss an innervate out while still main tanking the boss. While I am having a lot of fun with that I don't know how much this will continue into raiding and the content I haven't gotten to yet.

Cathela · 02/01/07, 2:49 PM

Originally Posted by Snow

Originally Posted by Cathela

I haven't seen an itemization problem yet. There's no blue tanking plate TBC that says "Classes: Warrior" that I'm aware of. There are a few quest-reward items that have spelldamage and defense on them; you can combine these with a spelldamage weapon and a set of standard tanking plate to make a very strong tanking set. I've done that and tanked Karazhan trash and the first boss just fine.

[Vambraces of Courage], the best tanking bracers I've found yet, appear on multiple sites as "Classes:Warrior," which seems to be fairly arbitrary from my perspective.

Well, (a) I did say "blue", (b) I believe a lot of non-set plate had the warrior tag removed late in Beta ([Boots of Elusion] are another such), (c) I'd say the crafted [Bracers of the Green Fortress] are better for most applications, and (d) assuming that item is still warrior-tagged then yes, it's frustrating that a piece of tanking gear that would enhance the focal point of our tanking tree (shield blocking) is reserved for another class.

Anyway, I think there is an itemization issue, mainly in that our set is a little light in shield block and stam. If we are in fact the aoe tanks of choice, we'd want a lot of block, and if we're MTs/backup MTs, then we want to have comparable stam/mitigation. Either way, it's a little heavy on spell power/int and a little light on block/stam.

I agree fully, and this drives me up the wall every time I think about it. Most of our T4 set has roughly equal amounts of stam and int; considering that stam costs 2/3 what int costs in itemization points, that means the designers are going out of their way to skimp on stamina and give us intellect. You get the sense that the itemization team never got the memo about Spiritual Attunement.

I'm basically resigning myself to non-set tanking gear at this point, and just hoping it exists in sufficient quantity at the epic levels. It certainly does at the blue level, which I'm very happy about.

As it stands now, though, I am almost positive I out-mitigate everyone in select situations(Malicious Instructors in Shadow Labs come to mind, <3 [Dabiri's Enigma]) and am only a little behind in most situations.

Well, the Instructors will suck up a full round of Holy Shield within 4-5 seconds whether you have DE active or not. In my view the trinket is more useful for forcing blocks against mobs that don't attack that quickly.

Cathela · 02/01/07, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by Brekk

Edit: And just to add. There is an amazing amount of syngery between a holy paladin, and a shadow priest. The one general weakness of healidans, is they can focus heal, but have difficulty with healing the entire grp. Vamp Embrace completely nullifies this as long as the tank is doing their job and not letting anyone else get hit.

And then the healing from Vampiric Touch triggers Spiritual Attunement as well, for even more mana. And in the worst case where the paladin + VE/VT can't quite keep up, the priest just pops out of shadowform and helps heal. The combination is just ungodly powerful.

I'm a Prot paladin, and I've done most of my BC leveling with two of my oldest friends in the game, a Holy paladin and a Shadow priest. Between the three of us we can cover pretty much any necessary combination of healing and tanking required for a 5-man, so we basically just plug in two dps from the guild and go to town.

The three of us have beaten a lot of outdoor quests that are suggested for 5-mans without outside help; it takes a bit longer when you only have 1 dps'er, but the group has amazing endurance so in most cases you can last long enough.

Snow · 02/01/07, 6:17 PM

Well, the Instructors will suck up a full round of Holy Shield within 4-5 seconds whether you have DE active or not. In my view the trinket is more useful for forcing blocks against mobs that don't attack that quickly.

It's precisely because they soak up HS charges so fast that DE is good there. Non-charge based +block is like sweet, sweet candy to paladin tanks, particularly in aoe situations where block rate is fluctuating rapidly. Anyway, I use them to force blocks when engaging slow hitting mobs too, with 1.5 min cd it's not like you have to save it.

I concur on the T4 stat situation. I honestly think they are doing what they botched with genesis for druids, and they think T4 is going to be pretty good for tanking with a side of healing, or tanking 5 mans where you want some spell dmg and int. Since we have a lot of warriors in the guild(but also a lot of priests) I will probably be doing my fair share of backup healing, so I don't mind a mixed set and I am looking forward to collecting it; but I'd rather it was a series of drops rather than the de facto T4 paladin tank set. That I would prefer to see something designed to actually, you know, tank raid bosses...

Somewhat off-topic, I picked up my [Timewarden's Leggings] and [Continuum Blade] just a few nights ago... I've got to say they are must-haves for any tanking paladin, considering there just aren't any better items that I know of(considering [Mana Wrath] to be a sidegrade).